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MP Costs

Verified the 10% white magic MP reduction; Raise III went from 250 MP to 225 MP. The 20% penalty is inferred; when using Dark Arts, Raise III's MP cost went up to 300 MP, so I assume the inverse is true as well.
--Somnar 05:06, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Cast and recast times

Did some testing on cast times as well; based on slow-casting spells like Stoneskin (7s) and Teleport (20s), the cast time reduction appears to be 5-10% on light spells, and the penalty is 20% on dark spells. Also, there appears to be a 10% recast reduction on light magic (stoneskin was 27s recast with light arts up), and a 20% recast penalty on dark magic.

I am almost certain about the recast time adjustments, but less so about the casting time adjustments. (It's hard to get exact casting times with a stopwatch.) My cast times were looking like a 5% reduction, but 10% would seem to match up better with the other numbers.
--Somnar 16:06, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Skill Caps

"***Notes see Exzirs finding***"
I tested Light/Dark Arts as a WHM64/SCH10. Perhaps the issue was my uncapped sub, but bear with me here. Before using Dark Arts, my Elemental Skill was in the low 20's, and my Water did 32 damage to a Goblin in Rolanberry Fields. After using Dark Arts, my Elemental skill went up to 180, but my damage didn't change. I wonder if perhaps it doesn't boost your sub-job skills to the 'main job's' B-Rating, but rather just boosts it to a 'sub-job' capped rating...if you understand what I mean. Any thoughts? ~----

Isn't nuke damage based on your INT, not your Elemental Magic Skill? Fiorenzo 17:30, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Skill doesn't effect damage much, mostly resist rate. Also it probably seems lower than /blm because you're missing Magic Attack Bonus as well, which at BLM30 subbed you would have 24% damage increase from MAB2.--Tarundi 06:42, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I believe damage cap on spell is based on INT, and whether you can deal that damage is based on magic attack (which is highly modified by skill). So basically 32 is the cap for Water at your current INT, which means the extra skill wouldn't do anything besides make sure it wasn't resisted for 16. --◄Chrisjander► t/ c 21:45, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I've been unable to figure out the exact formula for skills raised as ???/SCH. I'm not the best with formulas, or numbers in general, so here's my research. Maybe you guys can figure it out. I'm also listing what should be the cap for each.

WHM61/SCH13
Enfeebling: 190/192 (C)
Enhancing: 177/192 (C+)
Healing: 195/207 (A+)
Divine: 136/207 (A-)

Skill after using Light Arts:
Enhancing: 192/199 (B+)
Healing: 199/207 (A+)
Divine: 187/207 (A-)

Skill after using Dark Arts:
Enfeebling: 199/???

That last part is really weird. The cap for a B+ skill at lv61 should be 199, but the skill isn't capped after using Dark Arts.

SMN75/SCH13
Enhancing skill: 36 (capped)
Healing skill: 36 (capped)
Divine skill: 36 (capped)

Since SMN doesn't get any of these, and SCH has a D in all of them with no arts active, these are capped at a D level from a support job.

Skill after using Light Arts:
Enhancing skill: 246 (capped)
Healing skill: 246 (capped)
Divine skill: 246 (capped)

I can't make sense of this part at all. There is no skill rating that caps at 246 at lv75. Furthermore, it increases my skills far beyond what I actually have on WHM. The exact same thing happens to my Elemental, Enfeebling, and Dark skills when I use Dark Arts, since SMN doesn't get any of these six skills normally.

BLM57/SCH13
Elemental: 183/188 (A+)
Dark: 183/188 (A-)
Enfeebling: 175/175 (C+)
Enhancing: 157/157 (E)

Enfeebling and Enhancing are capped since they're higher on WHM.

With Light Arts:
Enhancing: 170 (capped)

Again, it caps at a very strange number. No skill at lv57 caps at 170. D caps at 168, and C caps at 175. Light arts should raise it to a B+, which would cap at 181.

With Dark Arts:
Enfeebling: 181/181 (capped at B+)
Elemental: 183/188 (unchanged)
Dark: 183/188 (unchanged)

I can't make any sense of it. Maybe you guys will have better luck. --Karl1982 19:23, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Also noteworthy is the fact that it increased my current healing skill on WHM, but not my current elemental or dark skill on BLM. Very strange. --Karl1982 19:31, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, here's an idea I've come up with, from the data I've seen. Hopefully, it might help out with future testing:

When using Light Arts or Dark Arts, the current skill value stays just as far under cap as it was before using LA/DA. Put another way, the current skill changes by exactly the same amount as the skill cap changes. Capped skills stay capped, and uncapped skills stay uncapped.

It makes a certain amount of sense to me, that SE would make it work, this way, since it means that Scholars can continue skilling uncapped skills, when using LA/DA, but no more or less that without LA/DA.

Anyway, the potential value this theory might have, here, is in providing more numbers against which to work. I expect the real calculation is based on the skill caps, rather than the current skill levels.

Karl1982, do you have or know of any data which contradicts this? You list some skill cap values for skills you don't have capped, and I don't know from where you got those numbers.

--Alephnot 20:59, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that was my first theory as well, that the current skill might be buffed by as much as it raises the cap. I also thought it might work on a percentage, that if you had 95% of the possible skill based on your current cap, it would maintain that. Both of these proved to be false when I gathered this data.

I got the skill caps from a chart that lists skill caps for every level. I can't post the link right now because I'm in a Valkurm party posting from my Wii, but I can get it later if you like. --Karl1982 13:52, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I believe your getting a penalty from having an underleveled sub.

I can't tell from the data you've given, but if you divide the main job level by the sub job levelm toss out any decimal, then subtrack three you should see the penalty. Take this number and subtract it from the main job level, then you should have the new level that the skill is based on. Well.. at least it fits what you posted above. Also when the it seems that with dark arts or light arts the job skill level looks like it's being based completely off the scholar skill level, and that skill level is looking like it's based on scholar at the adjusted main job level as above (so you could have mnk/sch with some great magical skill, so monks could like enfeeble and nuke like a level 75 SCH or could cure and buff like a level 75 SCH.. I haven't tested this but it seems reasonable given your posting of SMN/SCH) --NoOneLeft^Talk 16:23, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Here is a little additional information. I believe LA/DA increases your skill upto B cap for your current level. as a WAR75/SCH37 I was getting a reading of 256 for my magic skills. Pretty impressive i think, a WAR can use drain and aspir with a 246 Dark Magic skill, or cast a buff with 246 enhancing magic skill ~.^ BioShark 15:22, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Exzir's findings

Exzir 17:07, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

This only affects 3 main jobs. BLM RDM and WHM and any uncapped SCH.

Ok i looked up and found if a B+ capps at lvl 73 @ 246 so if your under 207.5 sill (D for 73) then you will cap at 246.

157 is 2 levels from 159 for D @ lvl 55; lvl 55 B+ is 171 so Light Arts and Dark Arts will raise your skill depending on what your current skill level is at. This skill level will have to determin what job level that will coniside with a D skill cap. It will rase it by the differance between D and B+ for that level and rounds the skill level. (Good for us :))
ie.
157 is capped at 159 lvl 55 159-157 = 2
171 is the cap for lvl 55 B+ so 171 - 2 = 169 but since the 157 could be 157.5-159.9 and rounds it.

Please check with the skill cap page when testing and see if what i have found jives with what your experanceing.

Tested futher and found it rounds up .5-.9 so if your .0-.4 once you skillup to .5 you will skillup in the menu but when you skill up it will tell you your unchanged skill level (it will say 158 per the example.)

Some levels will have a wider range between D and B+ I.E. 14 @ 39/42 and 15 @ 41/45 so once you receive 39.5 you will bump up 2 levels 42-44 so that when your 40.5 you'll hit the cap 45.

Stratagems Ignore Reduction Bonuses?

I posted this in Talk:Accession but after a further look, decided it should probably be brought up here. There's no mention in the article or discussion pages, but from what I've seen, using the Stratagems Penury, Celerity, and Accession (assumedly, as well, Parsimony, Alacrity, and Manifestation) ignore all Grimoire MP Cost, Spell Recast, and Spell Casttime reductions. I think it should be mentioned. You can see it with simple tests, such as: Cure IV is naturally 88 MP, but 80 MP with Light Arts; using Accession, it becomes 176 MP, using the original value (88x2=176) as opposed to the Grimoire-reduced one (would be 80x2=160); then use Penury, and you'll find it's reduced to 88 MP; remove Accession, and it's reduced to 44 MP, which is half of the original value (88/2=44) as opposed to the Grimoire-reduced one (80/2=40). To see the other reductions, you can run tests with spells like Stoneskin and Reraise (eg. Accession Stoneskin has a recast of 60 seconds, which is the original's 30 seconds doubled, as opposed to the Grimoire-reduced's 27 seconds which would be doubled to 54 seconds). Malumultimus 21:17, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Erase effect

Ive just been soloing as SCH, and ive noticed, every time I get hit with a status effect, I go to use Light Arts to cure it, and as soon as I do the effect dissappears.. is this coincedence? --Taruzard 21:15, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Light Arts